The Pulse Between Them

Neither moved.

The scanner continued its high whine—modulating like breath, rising and falling with no clear rhythm. Not mechanical. Not human.

Just... aware.

Lyra leaned in slightly, studying the glow between glyph and relic. Her hand hovered over the scanner, then pulled back.

> “This isn’t an echo,” she murmured. “It’s resonance response. Live.”

Gaius nodded, jaw tight. He’d suspected it. But it was different hearing her say it out loud.

> “It only reacts when you’re here,” he said. “On its own, it just... waits.”

She stared at the glyph. The ink had begun to bead, separating along the spiral edges as if rejecting the page. A low pulse fluttered through the room, subtle but sharp—like pressure shifting behind the walls.

> “It knows what it is,” Lyra whispered.

> “Or what it’s looking for.”

They both turned to the relic. It had stopped humming—but the silence it left behind was *worse*. The scanner dimmed, screen flickering before snapping into static.

Gaius reached out to shut it off, but before he could—

> “Wait,” Lyra said. “Just... listen.”

There it was.

Not hum.

Not signal.

A whisper.

Too soft to be clear. Too wrong to be misheard. A string of syllables that didn’t belong in any language either of them knew—but their bones remembered.

Lyra backed away, hand brushing her coat.

> “That glyph,” she said. “It’s part of a gate.”

> “What kind of gate?”

> “One that shouldn’t be here. One that was waiting for someone to see it again.”

Gaius didn’t respond.

He picked up the fragment, placed it back in its lined case, and sealed it shut with both hands.

> “Then we need to decide if we’re the ones who walk through it.”